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The company surprisingly announced on Thursday in Hamburg that the current market expectations would not be met. The economic uncertainties had once again “massively intensified” due to the war.
The Jungheinrich Board of Management is basically optimistic about demand and growth prospects. However, incoming orders this year will be slightly below the 4.9 billion euros from 2021. Jungheinrich also expects “further noticeable increases” in material costs. The management therefore expects earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to be “significantly” below the previous year’s figure of 360 million euros. The experts interviewed by the Bloomberg news agency had expected an average of around 377 million euros.
The Jungheinrich management around boss Lars Brzoska also expects the same “significant deterioration” in the pre-tax result (Ebt), which was 349 million euros last year. And the corresponding margins are also likely to be significantly lower. Negative effects of the war that cannot be conclusively assessed are not included in the prognosis.
In order to be able to meet the medium-term forecast raised in November, the group intends to significantly expand its human resources this year. By 2025, Group sales at Jungheinrich are expected to grow organically to EUR 5.5 billion. Eight to ten percent of sales should remain as operating earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT). The return on investment (ROCE) should be between 21 and 25 percent.
With the announcement on Thursday and the key figures already included for the past financial year, Jungheinrich partially anticipated the figures originally planned for next week. On March 31, the Hamburgers want to present the comprehensive figures for 2021.
Jungheinrich dampens expectations – KION also remains under pressure
Jungheinrich’s admission on Thursday that it would not be able to meet market expectations for 2022 further dampened the mood of the forklift manufacturer’s shareholders. The pressure to sell increased and the shares of the competitor KION also continued to fall.
Jungheinrich shares fell by a good 10 percent via XETRA at times and widened the discount to almost 18 percent over the past five days. KION fell by 7.5 percent on Thursday and by around 17 percent since the unsuccessful approach to the 50-day line a few days ago. Both erased most of their recovery since the March 7 low and are back well below the 21-day moving average, which is considered an indicator of the stocks’ short-term trend.
Equity expert Frederik Altmann from Alpha securities trading spoke of an “ugly profit warning”. The outlook for the current year is “well below the Bloomberg estimates,” he stated. While Jungheinrich now expects its sales in 2022 to be slightly above the 4.2 billion euros from 2021, the Bloomberg consensus so far has been around 4.5 billion euros. In terms of earnings, things look even worse: In view of the significant increase in material costs, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) and earnings before taxes (Ebt) will be “significantly below the previous year’s value” according to the company. On the other hand, an increase of around 6 percent had previously been expected on the market.
In its ad hoc announcement, Jungheinrich referred to the development of material costs. Although they are already at a “very high level”, they are likely to increase “noticeably” in 2022 as a result of the Ukraine war, it said. However, other negative effects from the war have not yet been taken into account, as they cannot yet be conclusively assessed.
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HAMBURG (dpa-AFX)
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